Category Archives: Opinion

For those that know me well, then you would already know the fact presented to you in the headline. And for those of you who don’t, let me catch you up to speed in the quickest way possible… I am precious: I physically cannot stay at hostels (3.5 stars are my absolute minimum for accommodation); if you don’t reply to my message within five minutes, I’ll be the first to complain about it, and will effortlessly flood your phone or inbox with messages until you do; unless it is cosplay or pop culture accessories (love my Harley Quinn Puddin’ choker), I refuse to wear jewellery that isn’t from Tiffany & Co.; and sometimes I call my father at work just to see what he’s doing.

I am high-maintenance af, and others have picked up on it. Some may intend it in a nice “but we love you anyway” kind of thing, but some people mean it as a form of insult, as in I need to change the way I am to suit them. I admit, being high-maintenance or needy isn’t necessarily a great quality to have, but I am proud of every intricacy of my personality, whether that is being bashful, loud, blunt, or high-maintenance.

As I sat down and thought to myself why others view me that way, I realised that when people call me high-maintenance, it is actually a huge compliment to my parents and their efforts in raising me to the best of their ability.

Thanks to two individuals, these siblings have lived a great life, including the addition of two sister-in-laws.

Contrary to what some may believe, when I was first born, my family didn’t have a lot. We usually wore hand-me-downs (FACT: I still have a jumper that my sister wore when she was in high-school so-and-so years ago), and we lived in a small three-bedroom house with seven humans and one canine, but I never saw the financial struggle that my parents must’ve faced, because to me, I had it all. I had somewhat loving brothers and sisters who each year grow closer and closer together; I had food on the table every morning, arvo, and evening, with plenty to spare for tomorrow’s leftovers; and we had a load of board games and a couple of gaming consoles that kept us kids entertained for days.

My father is Samoan, so we practice a tradition called “fa’a Samoa” (which you can learn more about at this link), which is loosely translated to “The Samoan Way”. I might not be completely familiar with the practice, but what I do know is that in this Samoan tradition, you give everything you have to family and friends, even the shirt off your back if you have to – especially in important times like funerals and weddings. While we weren’t rolling around in our riches, my parents often gave everything they had and much more to different family and friends, whom we often had over for dinner several days a week, to the point where I was accustomed to having up to 20 people at my dinner table on a weekly basis.

My father and mother raised me well, and gave me everything that I needed and most often, what I wanted. That is why, several years later as a 24-year-old, I can safely say that I deserve to be high-maintenance, because my needs were always met as a child, and my desires were given to me should I be deserving of them. My parents afforded me the luxuries of staying in nice hotels and enjoying the finer things in life.

So the next time someone tries to take a shot at me by calling me “needy” or “high-maintenance”, I am going to turn around and thank them for acknowledging the stellar job my parents did with me in raising me to be the man that I am today. And I am not ashamed of it.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go straighten my seven-coloured-hair, because I can’t go out in public unless my hair is straightened and styled to the left.

I identify as a 33-year-old American woman of Mexican and Italian heritage. My name is Stephanie Nicole Garcia-Colace. I have a twin sister named Brianna Danielson, and a younger brother named JJ. I was born in San Diego, California, but was raised on a farm in Scottsdale, Arizona. I currently wrestle in World Wrestling Entertainment as part of its Smackdown brand. I got my first exposure to the wrestling business participating in a talent search in 2006 called the WWE Diva Search with my sister Brie. We didn’t win the competition but were later hired and sent to WWE’s training facility, which at the time was called Florida Championship Wrestling. I am the longest reigning Divas Champion in WWE history, and a two-time Divas Champion. Currently, I live in Tampa, Florida with my boyfriend, who you may know… his name is John Cena. My sister is married to Brian Danielson, and JJ is married to a woman named Lauren, who we affectionately call “Lola”.

I am currently involved in a program with Mike Mizanin (known simply as The Miz) and Maryse Ouellet-Mizanin, and with my love John by my side, we will collide at WrestleMania 33 in the most hyped mixed-tag team match in WWE history. I say mixed tag, because it’s a male (John) and a female (me) vs. The Miz (male) and Maryse (female). This is a long time waiting, because John and I have never appeared on WWE TV together before, and the February 28, 2017 episode of Smackdown marked the first time we performed as a couple, appearing in a segment with The Miz and Maryse.

People may see me as a 5’11 Australian man of Samoan, Maori and Irish descent, but I don’t like to be defined by other people’s perceptions of me. I am a beautiful, sexy, voluptuous woman who loves wearing designer clothes and is damn proud to show off this curvy body. I am trapped in this body other people see – that of a 24-year-old man – but when I look in the mirror, I see a sexy Latina woman who has conquered the world, defied the haters and have gone on to rise to fame as one of the all-time great female superstars in WWE history.

I know you’re reading this, and you seem confused. And that’s fine. I don’t care what you conformists think. In this politically correct world, all you can do is sit there and accept that I identify as Nikki Bella, my true self. Lady Gaga told me that I was born this way, and I was born as a beautiful Latina woman.

I see two different pictures of the same person.

Now, if you have read this far and you think that I am completely out of mind, you would be correct. It would be crazy for me to think that I was Nikki Bella, because I’m not. I cannot possibly identify as someone or something that I am not, because that is a huge damage to my mental health.

So if you’re sitting there thinking that I need to seek mental help for believing that I am a famous WWE superstar, then why the hell do we have to accept that other people identify as inanimate objects or various types of animals?

In this horrible politically correct era we are unfortunately going through, we’re led to believe that we have to just sit back and accept what other people want to believe they are. And if we dare question it, we’re backwards thinking and close-minded, and we’re the bad guys. It’s become almost poisonous to identify someone with their most obvious feature if I wanted to pick out someone in a room; in a room of 50 people, suddenly saying “Oh the Asian woman there” is not only “racist”, but it’s also presumptuous because “what if that woman doesn’t identify as a woman and would prefer to be known as a sheep because she is a sheepkin?”

Fuck that.

Don’t get me wrong, if you’re a man and identify as a woman, have at it. Other way round? Go for gold. But don’t attack me for assuming your gender because I have no bloody idea what you identify as unless you tell me. Unless there is a special metahuman out there with the ability to mindread, nobody can read minds. Don’t be offended if someone can’t read your mind. Just kindly tell them “Hey, I’d prefer if you thought of me as a bloke instead”, and the other person will be like “No worries man.” Don’t attack them. You’re just victimising yourself and proving that you are indeed a precious little snowflake.

But if you’re going to sit there and say you’re an “owlkin” or a “pairofredscissorskin”, then you need to seek professional mental help immediately. Call me every name under the sun if you want for “not understanding” you, that doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, you have mental health issues, and if we’re going to treat someone with bipolar disorder as someone with mental health issues, then someone who identifies as a cheetah needs to be looked at.

It’s not cool. You need help. And there are several sources of aid you can seek out there that will help you.

Oh, and just for the record, the opening of this article was all false. I love Nikki Bella and am a big fan, but that is it. I’m proud to be the man that I am that adopted the nickname of Nikki from a joke that started at work nearly three years ago. And that’s all I identify as, thanks for asking.

If you avoid mainstream media for the same reason I’m about to rant about, then let me catch you up to speed on a story I’m absolutely sick of hearing: Kim Kardashian was robbed in an elaborate heist. That’s it. Nothing more needs to be said about it.

Then why does mainstream media continue to obsess and update on this story? A chick got robbed. Big deal.

When I studied journalism, I learned the fundamentals of showbiz journalism: extraordinary things that happen to ordinary people, you report it. Ordinary things that happen to “extraordinary” people, you report it. Eg: a woman from Geelong saves thirty people from a house fire, you report it. If Khloe Kardashian sneezes, unfortunately, you report it.

I get it. That’s how the world works, and unfortunately, it’s true that some people do care about these “celebrities”. But when Kim Kardashian’s daily life takes precedence over the consistent devastation of a civil war in a foreign country, or a country having a sickeningly powerful control of propaganda within their jurisdiction, it gets a bit fucking ridiculous.

It’s sad that this stupid family’s reportings have tarnished my passion for journalism. I don’t want to get involved in an industry whose main interest is “OMG what did Kylie wear the other day?! Let’s find out!”

Personally – from my strong opinion – if you care about what this family does, you really need to check yourself before you wreck yourself. If you do care about what this family does, you have to take a look in the mirror and question the reflection staring back at you as to why you care so much about a PR contrived family who are about as real as the bleached blond hair on my head. If you do care about what this family does, then you are missing out on all of the great people out in the world who are actually contributing to society, rather than tarnishing it. If you do care about what this family does, you miss out on the stories that are actually changing the world that you currently live in.

I mean, wouldn’t it be rough if you were taken from your home by foreign soldiers because you missed World War III for a new fucking Kylie Jenner lip kit coming out.

As a lighthearted way of proving that there are so many stories out in the world that have way more importance than what Kourtney Kardashian is eating, I’m going to compile several fake headlines and opening paragraphs of stories that fucking should take more importance than what the bloody Kardashians are up to.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull may send Australian forces to join World War III.

Global aid foundations join forces to end world hungerby Nikki Roivas

Several top charity organisations have come together to end world hunger, starting with tackling the poverty-stricken Sierra Leone.

Friendly dog smiles for the cameraby Nikki Roivas

A cheerful neighbourhood dog was caught smiling candidly for the camera.

Scientists discover that water is wetby Nikki Roivas

Australian scientists have found through thorough research that water, also referred to as H2O, is wet.

Local under 8’s soccer team beat their rivalsby Nikki Roivas

The under 8’s South-Western Rouse Hill Pillowfluffers have beaten the North-Eastern Rouse Hill Vacuum Cleaners 2-0 in the quarter finals of the local tournament.

Glass of Fanta spilled on kitchen benchby Nikki Roivas

A local man was horrified to discover he had accidentally spilled his glass of Fanta on his kitchen counter.

fin.

On a serious note, if you’re reading this and you find yourself obsessed with the daily happenings of the Kardashian/Jenner/West/East/South/Hudson/Maxwell/Oliviera/Valentine family, then I strongly suggest you veer away from your regular news sources COUGH DailymailPerezHiltonENewsOnline COUGH and read something a bit more heavy and deep, like Al Jazeera or even BBC World. You know, things that actually matter.

Or a story about a man spilling his glass of Fanta on his kitchen bench. Because I swear that is way more fucking important than Kim Kardashian being robbed and the thousands of follow up stories about it.

We’ve all seen the movies and read the stories of the ugly beautiful girl who enters a high school situation and is relentlessly bullied by the mean girls, but ends up turning into a beautiful swan, and the mean girls get their karma in the end, right?

Well, those are almost always from the “normal girl’s” perspective. There are two sides to every story. Now, I’m giving you the perspective of the mean girl*.

*NOTE: I am a man. This is just for lack of a better term.

I wonder how different my schooling would’ve been if I didn’t have school uniforms.

I finished high school in 2010, so it’s been a while since I experienced the cliquey culture that I once participated in, but during the latter years of my secondary schooling, my group of friends were affectionately named “The Bitch Group” and for quite good reason as well. I will be the first to admit that we weren’t exactly the nicest group of friends, although I can say we were fiercely loyal to each other. There were about eight or nine of us together, and the more there were, the more powerful we felt.

We weren’t the stereotypical Mean Girl group: we weren’t all rich with our daddy’s credit cards and we didn’t attend wicked underage parties every weekend and hookup with random guys and we sure as hell didn’t co-ordinate our wardrobes to be pink every Wednesday (only because we had school uniforms). The pure foundation of the stereotype did stick, however; we were horrible to some people, sometimes blatantly and unprovoked, and we did commandeer a highly popular rank on the school hierarchy.

To others, it was simple: stay on our good side, or you will live to regret it.

I remember one time when a new girl started in year 11 at our school. She was nice and pretty enough and seemed like she’d fit in with us well. After finishing our first set of classes, I walked to my first lunch period and sat down in our usual area. This particular new girl walked past us, clearly with no real home location to go to. I invited her to sit with us… and she politely declined. I didn’t take that politely, however, and from that moment on, I would call out horrible things to her to the point that she’d cry. Everything was completely unprovoked and there was no real reason as to why I hated her. But rejecting an invitation to The Bitch Group was turning down popularity, and for a 16-year-old Black Widow, that thought was completely unfathomable. And I hated her for it.

That brings up one of the main reasons why “mean girls” act the way they do: they need control of everything, and when they lose a portion of that control, they lash out. I had already mapped out where this girl was going to sit in our circle and where she’d fit into our social gatherings, and by completely denying me of that painted out future, I felt as if I lost control of the situation, and I took it out on the independent variable in that situation.

Control is power, and in a tense environment like high school hierarchy, power is everything. I would get away with many of the vile things I did because I had control of the situation; I would smile sweetly to the teachers and staff at school while throwing verbal insults and sometimes physical rubbish at the “nerdy group” when they had their backs turned. To lose that control would literally send me into a spiral, so I guess I had to go to some extreme measures in some cases to make sure that control never waivered.

I felt that being part of my group of friends meant that society thought I should do what I was “meant” to do, and that was be a bitch. I wasn’t allowed to talk video games and comics with the nerds (even though I was a HUGE closeted gamer and nerd) because that wasn’t my role in society, and I definitely wasn’t allowed to be nice to those who were lower than me on the social hierarchy. I even forced a few interests onto myself that fit my clique: fashion and make-up and all those typical girly things. Nowadays, I couldn’t tell you the difference between foundation and concealer, and the only fashion show I’ll willingly watch is Victoria’s Secret.

At the ripe ages of 15-17, that’s when people are at their most impressionable, so they’ll feel as if they have to play a specific role in a movie that isn’t even going on.

People may think that mean girls are mean because they want to be, but just like (almost) every other human being on this planet, they have souls, and sometimes it takes a deeper look into someone to see the real person behind their vicious words and iconic death stares.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, there’s one more mean girl stereotype we didn’t fit: contrary to most coming-of-age-teenage-girl stories, my group of friends stuck together through and after high school, and five years later, we are still the closest bunch of friends.

Part two of these confessions will be up before you can say “Watch out, Radioactive Man!”